Do you remember the feeling of having butterflies in your stomach at the time when you were about to get the results of your exams?
Sending a guest post to a reputable blog and then getting a response has pretty much the same effect, when you’ve clicked on the message and it’s loading on your screen. Just like a poor result card can bring about a miserable feeling, getting a cold “No” as the answer from the blog owner can be quite disheartening. Being a regular guest blogger, I hate that feeling, and that is why I don’t want any of you guys to go through that feeling in your guest blogging endeavors.
So, following are some common reasons for a guest post getting rejected, keeping these points in mind will save you from the dejection resulting from the rejection.
Grammatical or Factual Errors
When you are submitting a guest post, you cannot expect the blog owner to spend half an hour on editing and fixing your grammatical mistakes. Even worse, you cannot leave factual errors for them to rectify. As soon as they get your guest post, they will give it a quick read, and the moment they come across a couple of mistakes, there’s every chance that they will politely refuse. Therefore, make sure that both the English and the information in the article is spot on.
Not Captivating Enough
Most bloggers will be looking for a writer who writes better than, or at least as good as themselves. They are expecting guest posts to outshine the regular posts. In case the post fails to make an impression and hold their interest, they will not be too keen to use it on their blog. Therefore, you should pay special attention to the title, as well as the first few lines to make them as captivating as you can.
Same Old Topic
At times, you can get along by paraphrasing or simply rewriting others’ articles on your own blog, but a blog owner will not be interested in a guest post on a topic that is discussed a hundred times on different blogs (or their own blog for that matter). So you need to come up with topics and ideas, which are unique.
Overload of Guest Posts
Now this one is not actually your fault, still it is a common reason of a guest post getting rejected. Many times a blogger get swamped with posts coming from left, right, and center, so much so that they start rejecting new posts straight away, especially in case of a authority blogs. While there’s very little that you can do in this situation, your best bet is to write on topics which are hot and time sensitive, and mention it in your email. Bloggers are keen to cover trendy topics on their blogs. If you have done justice with the topic; you might manage to bypass the queue and go live.
Not accepting at the moment
This one is different from the previous one, because in this case, you will at least get a chance to feature even if it is after a long wait. But sometimes a blogger will simply refuse a guest post citing no reasons whatsoever. This is of course a lost cause, because there’s no way you can convince them except maybe paying (cough cough). But a better option is to request them to let you know when they will open their doors for guest bloggers.
You can do it!
You can get your guest posts accepted on the biggest blogs! Make sure you follow the guidelines here. Choose the guest blogs wisely. Write content that they will love. And don’t give up!
Saba Mushtaq is a content marketing expert. She writes for Post Joint, which is a guest posting network, connecting the bloggers and advertisers.
